DAY SEVENTY-SEVEN – Bob Beagrie

Albion Uncovered

(After Etel Adnan)

A misleading poll a floundering ship a black cross in a white square
A blue tide a sick sea a navy flood a pouring of bile on a shredded sky
A shaking head a turning gut a sweating palm an intake of breath
A gasp a cry a moan a groan a whimper a sigh a disbelieving why
A bacon sandwich in the sun a faulty prediction cracks the mirror
A black cross of hope in a white square in a sealed envelope
A disabled star that’s fit for work a dying sun that can’t go on
A country drowned in a tide of blue a lie that cross-threads the past
A plan backfired a stitched up future strangled by quangoed horizons
A blue collar tide wading into a sick sea a kingdom held to ransom
A red dwarf singing the blues to a hoodwinked class with a blue guitar
A blue giant with a privileged snout snuffling in the public purse
A class war grown in a window box with a view of the financial heart
A sanctioned moon sleeping rough another shadow committing suicide
A public purse made from a pig’s ear bails out the liborless banks
A cover up a media black out a white wash a code of misconduct
A whistle blower with a duct taped mouth an offshore bank account
A sell off a sell out a surprise majority a scapegoat for the deficit
A big society a bedroom tax a handshake a well scratched back
A wave of job losses a child fed from a food bank a corporate scam
A benefit trap a hidden agenda a manipulated statistic a student debt
A second term of austerity measures a pay freeze a welfare cap
A service cut a siphoning of resources a slashed budget weeping blood
A mass protest a campaign a flash riot a heavy hand of provocation
A scare-mongerer a manufactured fear an empty promise a done deal
A wolf pack in its Bullingdon best a British value a redefinition of poverty
A scandal a cooked book a cabinet of inherited multi-millionaires
A retraction of legal aid a pay off a threadbare fable of the union
A moth eaten dust sheet concealing the framework of feudalism
A glass ceiling a well spun sound bite a true blue tide in a sick sea

Bob Beagrie is the author of several poetry collections including Sampo: Heading Further North (Red Squirrel Press) written with Andy Willoughby. He lives in Middlesbrough and is a lecturer at Teesside University.

New Boots – the Anthology!

A selection of 100 poems from the project is now available in book form from Smokestack (price £8.99) - go here to order.

"Why the devil I throw my money away for that which the blockheads wish?" (G.F. Handel)

Welcome poets, polemicists and the disbelieving masses

The 2015 General Election made manifest the great sea-change that had been occurring in UK politics over the last fifteen to twenty years. Previous certainties, like Labour’s Scottish hegemony, are no more. Older patterns, like Conservative dominance of England, reasserted themselves.

The idea of the UK as a single country has been replaced by a plurality of identities, some long known to the other countries and regions, others formulating themselves as time passes. For that reason, we thought it might be an interesting experiment to chart the responses of those unacknowledged legislators, the poets, over the first 100 days of the new dispensation.

We ended up publishing a poem a day for 138 days, each one responding to some aspect of the new unrealpolitik. We then set to editing a book of 100 poems in order to, as we thought then, conclude the project.

However, the results of the EU Referendum showed that the slow slew in British political identity toward disillusionment and division had reached a breaking point that made even more evident the contrasts already indicated by the Scottish referendum and the General Election. We felt we had to begin again...

Stay with us, and see what the hell happens next. Oh fuck, it's Trump.

Commissioning and Contributions

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